"Yes," she breathed. "A thousand times, yes!"
"Say it," he pleaded. "Just those three words."
"I love you," she answered, "for everything you have been and everything you are and everything you are going to be, for always. I love you with a love that is yours alone. It never belonged to anybody else for the merest fraction of a second, and never can. It was born for you, lives for you, and will die when you need it no more."
"Ah," he said, "but I need it always. I've wanted you all my life."
"And will," she sighed, trying to release herself.
"Edith! Don't! I can't bear it! Take the golden hour as the glittering sands of eternity sweep past us. So much is yours and mine, out of all that is past and to come."
"As you wish," she responded. Then, after another pause, she said: "Don't you want to read to me?"
Rosemary, dumb and hopeless, saw them sit down, close together, and lean against the rock, where the sunlight made an aureole of Edith's hair. He slipped his arm around her, and she laid her head upon his shoulder, with a look of heavenly peace upon her pale face. Never had the contrast between them been more painful than now, for Edith, with love in her eyes, was exquisite beyond all words.
The Red Book Again
Alden took a small red book out of his pocket. With a pang, Rosemary recognised it. Was nothing to be left sacred to her? She longed to break from her hiding-place, face them both with stern accusing eyes, snatch the book which meant so much to her—ask for this much, at least, to keep. Yet she kept still, and listened helplessly, with the blood beating in her ears.